How to market a medical product?

How much of Market and Customer risks fall under the responsibility of the Product Manager?

• Ash Maurya, through his book "Running Lean," states that there are three risks in a startup: Product (getting the product right), Customer (building a path to customers), and Market (building a viable business). In an organization with a Product Manager, how much of the Customer and Market risks should fall under this Product Manager hat? What if there are other members of the org who are responsible for driving traffic (customer risks) and sales (market risks); what does this mean for the Product Manager's accountability for the product's overall success or failure?

• Answer:

  I would suggest the answer really depends on you and how ambitious you are.   The more you take on (and succeed at) the more valuable you are as employee and the more likely you are to be promoted.  Sometimes you will find people in the way who either officially have positional authority for one of these tasks or claimed it for themselves.  If you have done your homework and have fact based opinions on how to succeed then you should "socialize" your ideas with other key members in the team to win them over...anything that is a win for the company that you initiated is a win for you...why hold back?